Trump Pardons Crypto Crook Who Made Him Millions - The Friday AM Quickie 10/24/25
Scientists say the dinosaurs were doing just fine and minding their own business until an asteroid took them out. Isn't that always the way? I'm out, Whitney's back Monday. - Corey
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THE BIG NEWS
Trump's Latest Pardon Boosts Crypto Corruption
The rapidly crumbling White House yesterday released a list of corporate and individual donors to Donald Trump's demolition and golden ballroom project. As Politico reports, it's laden with "key players in the crypto industry, including Coinbase, Ripple, Tether and the influential Winklevoss twins." Scam-friendly cryptocurrency cons have become a key plank of the Trump family's ill-gotten wealth – producing even more profit than their real estate business – and he's not at all shy about rewarding his shady, tech savvy friends.
That cozy network of corruption was on full display yesterday when Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of crypto exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money laundering for criminal organizations in 2023 in one of the biggest federal investigations into the shady crypto trade. Zhao served four months in prison and spent a year lobbying his business partner, Trump, for a pardon. "Trump recently indicated to advisers that he was sympathetic to arguments of political persecution related to Zhao and others," the Wall Street Journal reports. But more importantly, since "Trump's election, Binance has also been a key supporter of his family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture, a business that has driven a huge leap in the president's personal wealth."
Per the Washington Post, the pardon "raises the possibility of Binance being able to operate in the United States and avoid paying the $4.3 billion fine" levied against it during the Biden administration. In other words, it's open season for online scams in America, which have cost ordinary people billions of dollars. The top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, warned yesterday that "if Congress does not stop this kind of corruption in pending market structure legislation, it owns this lawlessness."
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
The Clampdown: More Democrats Targeted By Trump's Goons
- Agents Fire Shots at U-Haul at Protest Near Oakland Coast Guard Base There were large demonstrations across the Bay Area yesterday; at the same Oakland demonstration, a clergyman was hit in the face with a flash-bang grenade. via the San Francisco Chronicle, NBC News, and the Associated Press.
- California Democrats Demand Answers About Marine Artillery Exercise Over I-5 Near San Diego During No Kings Protest Meanwhile, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that immigrant detainees must have access to legal counsel after advocates described "inherently coercive" and "inhumane conditions, with 'no beds, no showers, no heat, vending machine food at best'" in the city's B-18 lockup. via the AP and the Los Angeles Times.
- Chicago Boils Over After Senior Border Patrol Official Chucks Tear Gas Canister Into Crowd 'Without Justification' "I told him not to throw it because all he was going to do was rile people up, but he just smirked at me and threw it anyway," Little Village Community Council president Baltazar Enriquez says he told US Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino. via the New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Washington Post.
- Washington, DC Protester Who Annoyed Trump's Occupying Troops By Playing Darth Vader's Theme Song Sues Over Wrongful Arrest "'The government doesn't get to decide if your protest is funny, and the government officials can't punish you for making them the punch line. That's really the whole point of the First Amendment,' Michael Perloff, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of DC, said." via the Washington Post and the AP.
Trump Says Congress Won't Get a Say in Caribbean War
Donald Trump said yesterday that he won't seek a constitutionally required Congressional declaration of war as he pursues his escalating campaign of "murder" in South American waters. "I don't think we're necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country," Trump said yesterday, per NBC News. "We're going to kill them. They're going to be, like, dead." The US military flew two supersonic B-1 bombers along Venezuela's coastline yesterday, adding to fears of an imminent invasion as the US builds up an "unusually large force" in the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that charred corpses have been washing up on the beaches of Trinidad and Tobago. The island government, which is supportive of US action against its neighbor Venezuela, isn't properly investigating, but locals "are arriving at their own conclusions": that the bodies are victims of Trump's military strikes on civilian boats. "There's no question in my mind that these men are casualties of war," one Trinidadian tells the Times.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Israeli Knesset Vote on West Bank Annexation Frustrates Visiting JD Vance The vice bootlicker claims US troops would only be "supervising and mediating" a planned international security force in Gaza that may attempt to disarm Hamas. via Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
- FBI's Kash Patel Gloats Over Bust of NBA Figures in Mafia-Linked Rigged Card Games Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was among those allegedly caught up in a long-running, multi-million dollar scam involving "the notorious Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime 'families' — as well as defendants with nicknames like 'The Wrestler,' 'Juice,' 'Big Bruce' and 'Pookie.'" via Willamette Week, NBC News, and the AP.
- Creepy Andrew Cuomo Goes Full Racist in Desperate Attacks on Zohran Mamdani In addition to boosting radio host's suggestion that the Muslim Democratic socialist mayoral nominee would cheer another 9/11, Cuomo's campaign this week "posted, and then took down, an AI-generated video depicting Mr. Mamdani's supporters as trespassers, domestic abusers, pimps, drug dealers and drunken drivers, and showing a Black shoplifter in a kaffiyeh." via the New York Times, Gothamist, and Politico.
- Socialist Catherine Connolly Takes Commanding Lead in Ireland's Presidential Race Connolly, the independent former mayor of Galway, has denounced Israel's genocide in Gaza while expressing skepticism of Europe's rearmament to confront Russia. via Politico, the Guardian, and BBC News.
SOME NUMBER
4.3 billion
That's the minimum number of barrels of oil the US government believes are buried beneath the coastal plain of the Alaska's pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which the Trump regime yesterday announced would be developed to permit oil and gas drilling. Trump is "sell[ing] out our wildest landscape and natural heritage to corporate polluters," says the Sierra Club's Dan Ritzman. "These decisions will collectively wreak havoc on fragile Alaska ecosystems in the most disruptive way possible."
ON THE SHOW TODAY
10/24: Happy Friday! Emma will be hosting solo; the guest will be journalist Astead Herndon, who recently joined Vox as editorial director.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
Zohran and Andrew Schultz Roast Billionaires 'Leaving' New York
Rich people who volunteer to pay more taxes get a gold star.
Platner's Campaign Marches on Despite Intense Hit Pieces
Senate Democrats don't sound worried.
PARTING WORDS
"My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is, if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future? If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over this robot army? … I don't feel comfortable building that robot army unless I have a strong influence.”
-- White supremacist billionaire Elon Musk, laying out some perceived problems with his plans to build an "enormous robot army" on on an investor call yesterday, as reported by Wired. Musk's pitch to Tesla investors includes boosting his already egregious pay package to $1 trillion, even though the company's earnings are taking a nosedive. In between mismanaging his companies and gutting the US government, the former Trump regime official is openly feuding with his latest nemesis, acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy, who is moving the agency away from reliance on Musk's SpaceX for future lunar exploration contracts. According to the New York Times, unofficial national security adviser Laura Loomer is siding with Musk against Duffy.
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